In forming color photographic images, exposed light-sensitive materials having yellow, magenta and cyan photographic couplers in blue-sensitive, green-sensitive and red-sensitive layers, respectively, are subjected to color development processing using a color developing agent. In development processing, an oxidation product of an aromatic primary amine undergoes a coupling reaction with each of the above described couplers to give color dyes.
It is fundamentally important for the color dyes formed to be bright cyan, magenta and yellow dyes with minimal side absorptions, in order to provide color photographic images having well reproduced colors.
On the other hand, preservability of the color photographic image is also extremely important, and the color photographic images formed should have good preservability (e.g. image stability) under various conditions.
In order to improve preservability or image stability, it is necessary not only to delay the fading or color changing rates of color dyes of different hues, but it is also necessary that the fading rates of each color forming the image be as uniform as possible, to preserve the color balance of the remaining dye image.
However, conventional photographic materials, particularly color papers, suffer serious deterioration of the cyan dye image after long period of dark fading due to the influence of humidity and heat, thus exhibiting a change in color balance and, therefore, requires improvement. On the other hand, conventional color dyes which scarcely fade in the dark have the contrary disadvantages of poor color hues and provides cyan dye images which fade or disappear on exposure to light. For these reasons, it is desired to develop color photographic materials overcoming these problems.
Specific combinations of high-boiling organic solvents and cyan couplers have been proposed partly to solve these problems, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 54-99432 (the term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application open to public inspection"), Japanese Patent Publication No. 59-33904, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 59-105645 and 59-105646. Specific combinations of couplers have also been proposed as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 52-7344, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 57-200037 and 59-57238, etc. However, these combinations provide only insufficient color forming properties or provide dyes of poor hue, thus being unsatisfactory for color reproduction. Particularly, the color balance of residual dye images changes as a result of deterioration on exposure to light or heat. Therefore, improvement of the combination is desired.
The present invention intends to provide a color photographic material which overcomes the defects of conventional color photographic materials described above.